As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that's not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you're born determines your prospects.
From Wendy Kopp
We're not trying to be the only route into teaching. We do put enormous energy into understanding what differentiates the most successful teachers.
In every case where I've seen a transformational school, there's a principal who really has the foundational experience of having taught successfully.
I had been very focused on the issue of education disparities in our country, and literally, by the time kids are just nine years old, in low-income communities, they're already three or four grade levels behind nine-year-olds in high-income communities.
Throughout history, when societies have been faced with big challenges, they've put their best people on them. During the Space Race, American and Russian scientists, engineers, astronauts and cosmonauts pushed the bounds of what was possible and landed men on the moon.
Imagine how different those classrooms could be if hundreds of Nigeria's most talented recent graduates and professionals channeled their energy not only into the country's banks, but into making education in the country a force for transformation.
If we're going to see sustainable results from all the other investments we're making in education, we need to build leadership capacity in each and every country.
We're trying to be the top employer of recent grads in the country. Size gives us leverage to have a tangible impact on school systems.
We must broaden the definition of who our neighbors are, and extend the boundaries of our interest and empathy.
There's no how-to guide for how to change the world. But it's easy to get hung up by misconceptions about what it takes to make an impact.
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